Is it possible to get a religious vaccine exemption?

[Thrasymachus]

@ball-of-string:
Try to find out your employers vaccination policy if they have one. According to one podcast I listened to, Alan Phillips stated that even most hospitals don't have one and that most often even when they actually have one it is in contravention to individual Constitutional and other legal rights, since they are ignorant of such matters! So it is not easy and it can often turn into a one person vs a behemoth organization, one-sided struggle. That is why I am so worried and anxious, finally I get a chance at a living wage, and it might dissipate for appearing difficult simply because I want control over what goes into my own body.

I found another vaccine exemption lawyer, Patricia Finn who is based in New York. Sadly going the free route without a lawyer, does not seem like it has large chances of success, indeed it could lead to you losing your job or a prospective one. For example, if I didn't use due diligence I would have tried to research the ingredients and adverse effects of whatever is in the montaux test and convince the administering nurse or doctor it was a bad policy that I refuse, which is almost a recipe for failure. Rather from what I understand, the best chance is to use your constitutional right to freedom of religion and to make your employer realize they cannot dictate that.

[Dan74]

My wife and I both had the Mantoux TB test. Our three children were vaccinated multiple times - it's quite strict here in Australia. We are a very healthy family so far.

Thanks to vaccines polio cases have been reduced from hundreds of thousands to under a thousand per year and small-pox completely eradicated. Yes, there are people who react badly to vaccine, a very small minority.

Interesting that you said you did house painting which involved breathing significant amounts of toxic chemicals but a trace amount of mercury worries you. Am I missing something?

[gregkavarnos]

A clear case of the devil finding work for idle hands. Conspiracy theorising is definitely an idle middle class phenomenon. When you are rich you are too busy making more money or enjoying yourself, when you are poor you are too busy trying to make money and feeling sorry for yourself.

[Thrasymachus]

Does anyone know how I would look into taking the Quantiferon-gold test for tuberculosis(which as I understand is a test done on drawn blood)? It seems this option is slim, I only found two test sites in all of NJ:
http://www.cellestis.com/IRM/content/usa/contact_quantiferon.html
There maybe other test sites not listed, but also I have to have the results by Monday morning which seems unlikely.

I also found this info:

Standard Interpretations - 1910.1030, September 23, 1997
Finally, be aware that participation in the employer's skin testing program is voluntary on the part of the employee. OSHA does not require that employees participate in TB skin testing, only that the employer make such skin testing available to employees.

[Jikan]

A clear case of the devil finding work for idle hands. Conspiracy theorising is definitely an idle middle class phenomenon...

so you mean it's probably OK to fly in and out of Denver Int'l Airport after all?

http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Denver_Airport.html

I'd like to know if there is any plausible evidence against vaccines, beyond the conspiratorial fringe.

[Lhug-Pa]

Jikan, here's a link I posted in reply to you in another thread (perhaps you didn't see it because I'd edited into my post after you'd already replied):

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/about/

Don't know if it's non-'conspiratorial fringe' enough.... It is worth a read in any case.

And I'd imagine that there aren't a whole lot of peer-reviewed journals with articles about the dangers of vaccines, considering that most doctors who contribute to peer-reviewed journals are most likely on big-pharma's payroll. There are some peer-reviewed journals on the dangers of vaccines out there if you look.

Thrasymschus, if I were more familiar with the tests you're asking about here, I would share what I'd learned.
This probably isn't the best forum to ask about these things, seeing that many of the views commonly found here are pretty conventional/mainstream, despite it being a Buddhist forum. Many of the views expressed here related to how contemporary society 'functions' are what I would expect to see on either a atheist-skeptics forum or a conventional-Christian forum.

Instead of intelligent discussion around here, we often get knee-jerk-reaction words like "paranoia", "conspiracy", "tinfoil hat", "new age", etc.; known to some as "slide-words" i.e. words that are used in a such a manner meant to stop people from questioning. One doesn't have to be paranoid to see that society is headed for even more extreme failure if things don't change soon (for example B. Obama obviously didn't bring the promised "Change"; we only got even more warmongering, more corporatism, and less civil liberties. I didn't think any administration could outdo the Neocon Bush administration when it comes to corruption; looks like I was incorrect there).

Not only is this samsara, but it is also the Kali Yuga; and it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone—considering how approximately 1% of the population controls approximately 90% of the world's financial wealth—that there are small groups of people conspiring to do whatever it takes to stay in 'control'.

Bottom line: Unless it's absolutely necessary to not avoid them; avoid GMO's, vaccines, fluoride, synthetic-chemical pesticides & pharmaceuticals, etc., don't support—whether republican or democrat—warmongering politicians (which is almost every single one of them these days, at least in the U.S.), and try to find a completely honest livelihood (i.e. one that doesn't support any of the above-mentioned negativities) if possible. I know that with most jobs nowadays we have to compromise just to get by, so take what you can get at least temporarily (until that non corporatist organic-farming-for-a-living-wage career becomes available), and just do your best, practice Dharma, and don't worry about it.

And also don't go up in Buddhist forums and try to make people who question things out as "conspiracy nuts", etc. Some people work to expose corruption not out of having too much time on their hands, but out of compassion for those who are ignorant about what's going on. Yes, Dharma practice is the best way to eliminate ignorance. And I also applaud those expose the 1% liars currently in 'power', that is the 1% who wants to keep the wars & corporatocracy going.

Contemporary doctors may have something to offer (besides toxic vaccines & synthetic-chemical pharmaceuticals), however as practitioners of Buddha Dharma, we should promote time-tested traditional methods like Ayurveda and Tibetan Medicine more.

P.S.

Like I've mentioned before, vaccines might come in handy in some very rare circumstances; and I would even be willing to give them a little more of a chance if they weren't totally monopolized by big-pharma.

[Lhug-Pa]

Edit to my previous post:

"Yes, Dharma practice is the best way to end ignorance. And I do also applaud those who—whether they are Buddhist or not Buddhist—expose the 1% liars currently in 'power', that is the 1% who wants to keep the wars & corporatocracy going."

Of course not everyone can support themselves or their family financially, practice Dharma, AND research & expose everything related to government-corruption, academic-corruption, monsanto's corruption, corporatist-corruption, big-pharma's corruption, etc.

Therefore Dharma practice is obviously priority.

P.S.

About the third or fourth paragraph in my post a couple posts back (my recent larger post)...; it's not so much that there isn't intelligent discussion around here; it's more-so that openness and dialogue are sometimes not encouraged very much.

Some relevant what I guess are called memes:

*BTW, I agree with many, not all, of the memes from this^ Facebook page*

[Thrasymachus]

You want to know the conspiracy theory? So far, 1070 dharmawheel users and lurkers have read this thread. Almost no one knows about the harm of vaccines and no one cares. Not only here, but elsewhere as I have cross-posted the same or similar text to three other forums, and one vaccine support group for NJ(for refuseniks of vaccines). Not only that but I contacted my local health department and they do not know about the religious exemption rights of employees, and I also contacted the health department of the town where I would go to receive the physical(Maplewood). In addition in the USA there is a Christian sect known as Christian Science that refuses all vaccines and medical procedures, which has a reading room in my town. Around the time I first created this thread, I contacted their reading room and even the lady there did not know much about adult employment issues, but she did have experience with school vaccine refusal. Now there are people sympathetic on some of the other forums, but they are still ignorant about the legal means of how to go about refusing the tb test or vaccines as an adult in an employment situation. Yet every-time I pass by a movie theater, the entire parking lot with hundreds of car slots is full or almost so. No one knows the structure of the society around them, they just know the establishment myth about "doctors that heal, teachers that teach and policemen that make us safe," because everyone wants to invest their time in fantasy land. I mean people it is time to grow up, for every privileged Western white, mostly baby-boomer or baby-boomer-esque Buddhist here, there several people are on the back end of imperialism who live in object poverty because of our imperialist governments that re-distribute the goods and raw materials needed for our rich lifestyles to pacify us. And what are people around you doing: if they are not drug addicts then they are shopping addicts, or perhaps degenerate gamblers, if they are not alcoholic then likely they feel that a group of adults cannot be together without alcohol(social drinkers), the average person watches about 6 hours of tv a day where I live, or maybe they are an internet addict or a video game one. So what does this mean? That you almost all live in societies where people don't want to live(despite any direct protest to being outed on how they spend their life), and people would escape life much longer if they didn't have to work or go to school to substitute for pixel or drug based fantasy lands. And the societies where people may actually want to live in the real world in real social space-time, often don't get that opportunity because of debt peonage enforced by loyal quisling neo-colonial regimes so their resources can be cheap, so their governments can be in debt forever and so they can never compete with the imperial nations. Anyway I felt a need to write this as an antidote to the constant social reality denial of most Western Buddhists with their apparent meditation first orientation and the first strike against actual existing social-reality policy that many of you seem to hold. Honestly before I participated on this forum I thought Buddhism was a force of good, but I am 100% clear that is not the case. I am coming to the conclusion that for many it is the worst form of escapism in their lives.

Now I wrote this elsewhere but will cross-post it here:
Here is a very authoritative source, which I gave before and apparently everyone wants to ignore:
CDC.gov: Vaccine Excipient & Media Summary Excipients Included in U.S. Vaccines, by Vaccine[PDF]
They mention that vaccine excipients/ingredients include aluminum compounds, formaldehyde, thimerosal(mercury), monkey kidney cells, bovine, chicken "protein", other foreign animal content, etc.!

Now please prove to me using any good source that those items which you should not even be eating or inhaling particles thereof, and mind you then you have more immune system and bodily process to mitigate the harm then, that it is somehow healthy to inject any of those substances intravenously into the blood where only meager white blood cells can try to combat them? Yet somehow all these compounds known to be harmful to humans when used by Pharmaceutical giants and put directly into the blood, are all healthy. Do a restricted web search using "site:.gov" and check those common vaccine ingredients and see what the government says about them in isolation and they are somehow magically different compounds that are highly toxic and poisonous to humans. Reality: he who has the money makes the rules, he doesn't have money suffers the rules.

Now the mantoux test according to the cdc.gov PDF in my original post contains the ingredient phenol:
This is the EPA.gov warning on that toxic ingredient.
Another ingredient is Polysorbate 80 which according to this Pubmed.gov extract:

RESULTS:
Polysorbate 80 was identified as the causative agent for the anaphylactoid reaction of nonimmunologic origin in the patient.

Anaphylaxis: Anaphylaxis is a rapidly progressing, life-threatening allergic reaction.

So how is the mantoux test that inserts these substances intradermally actually safe?

Also about the imaginary benefit of testing millions for tb in my country:

CDC.gov: Trends in Tuberculosis 2011
"10,528 TB cases were reported in the United States in 2011"
"There were 529 deaths from TB in 2009"

So why are millions of people every year, workers in my prospective field among them being tested for a disease that is largely eradicated in this country? Well it is something for lots of smaller players in the medical system to bill as a line item, and it is something for the bigger players to make billions from. The mainstream medical system is a racket, a monopoly cartel, if you don't know this, it is because you haven't checked. All the sources I used have been .gov! Sure the CDC says vaccines are safe, but it also lists many common vaccine ingredients. So do your own research and look them up and restrict to site:.gov.

[Lhug-Pa]

Thank you for the additional links Thrasymachus.

This is actually worth quoting here as well:

The International Medical Council on Vaccination is an association of medical doctors, registered nurses and other qualified medical professionals whose purpose is to counter the messages asserted by pharmaceutical companies, the government and medical agencies that vaccines are safe, effective and harmless. Our conclusions have been reached individually by each member of the Council, after thousands of hours of personal research, study and observation.

Principles and Findings

We are profoundly critical of the practice of vaccination. Vaccination is an unacceptable risk to every member of society, regardless of age.
As medical professionals, Council members have observed first-hand the health of vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated. We find the latter group to be robust, healthy and drug-free compared to the former group.
We have reviewed published studies in support of vaccines and have found them wanting in both substance and science.
We have brought out into the open hundreds of peer-reviewed, published medical articles that document the damage and the diseases caused by vaccines.
We find the premise of herd immunity to be a faulty theory.
We encourage intelligent debate about vaccination.
We expect individuals to take responsibility for their health and the health of their children by investigating the problems due to vaccination prior to subjecting their children, or themselves, to this medical procedure.
We believe that refusing vaccination is a personal right that should be legislatively guaranteed.
- See more at: http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/about ... innb0.dpuf

I'd like to read over this^ website more, and compare the information in it with that found in the links you've posted here.

Also, Thrasymachus, for what it's worth I agree with just about every word you've said here.

And I think you'd find it worthwhile to look at the Monsanto Exposed Facebook page, for example you wrote:

No one knows the structure of the society around them, they just know the establishment myth about "doctors that heal, teachers that teach and policemen that make us safe,"

First of all, I actually don't like guns at all; I wish they didn't even exist. At the same time, it's totally hypocritical if the criminals in the federal gov. are allowed to have assault weapons while the average common-law abiding individual is not (if the average person only knew how many innocent people cops have killed and beaten). Anyhow, the above just illustrates how messed up this countries priorities are.

I'd also posted a link a couple posts back about all the toxins you mentioned which are found in vaccines.

Don't have to time right now to address everything in your recent post; and I do want to add something here before I log off:

Agreed that Buddhism is not necessarily a good thing.

There is of course a difference between Buddhism and Buddha Dharma.

Buddhism = Possible escapism for many.

Buddha Dharma = "There is nothing that the offspring of the Victorious Ones do not learn, there is nothing that does not produce merits for the wise who act in accord with this principle." - Chögyal Namkhai Norbu quoting Shantideva

With this in mind, "meditation first" is actually a good idea; if one has a good teacher.

And this^ goes for contemporary "education", "science", and pharmaceutical "authorities" too.

[LastLegend]

It's hard not to ingest poison these days of age unless you grow your own food.

[Dan74]

It's hard not to ingest poison these days of age unless you grow your own food.

And yet amazingly people live longer (no doubt due to our lifespans artificially extended by our reptilian overlords so we can slave for them longer).

Thrsaymachus, I think you might be jumping the gun here a bit. Just because some of us don't necessarily share your aversion to vaccines, does not mean we are ignorant drones. Your rant was quite impressive by the way though not really original. Nor was it totally false.

You may be surprised that most folks here are aware that the system is far from perfect and are even doing something about it. What the Dharma helps with is seeing clearly and not just one side which is often a reflection of ourselves.

It is truly amazing to what extent our perception of reality is conditioned by our mental state. We are lonely unappreciated despondent and the world is a cold cruel stupid place full of assholes and fools. We find a good job, fall in love and suddenly all that is forgotten and we stop to smell the roses and marvel at the children laughing.

Which view is true? Truer? Is one right and the other wrong?

As for phenol, it is a preservative. Not dangerous in such amounts. As for aluminium, it helps vaccine work better. All have been studied and documented, which doesn't necessarily mean it's the best thing. But it's not a conspiracy. Sometimes big pharma screw up, sometimes they may try to cover up their screw-ups. Often they act out of greed. But who doesn't?

So you may be quite right about some testing being nothing but a money maker for the big boys. But we have to do our best in an imperfect system. When has it been different?

[Lhug-Pa]

It's hard not to ingest poison these days of age unless you grow your own food.

You could try to find local farmers who you trust.

And I think that organically-grown food is generally watched closely enough that what we're getting is actually organic, at least as organic as it can be considering how polluted this planet has become. At least certified organics are not directly sprayed with Monsanto's synthetic-chemical toxins, or adulterated with fish-genes, or made to make insects stomachs explode if they ingest it.

Also, make sure that the organic products you get were not produced by Coca-Cola or some other greedy corporation who lobbies to have organic standards lowered and GMO's not labeled.

If you can, growing your own food is a great way to go of course (assuming it's still legal to do so where you reside, as it is illegal in some places (!!!)).

And yet amazingly people live longer (no doubt due to our lifespans artificially extended by our reptilian overlords so we can slave for them longer)

I'm willing to bet that—generally speaking—someone who lives a healthy lifestyle i.e. gets regular exercise, practices Yantra Yoga, Meditation, eats an all-organic & well-rounded diet, and has or becomes a good Ayurvedic or Tibetan-Medicine Doctor, and doesn't have to endure too many hardships, would live a lot longer than the average GMO/pesticide/vaccine/fluoride/carbon-monoxide ridden person whose life-span is artificially extended through synthetic-chemical pharmaceuticals. More importantly, the former would generally have a better quality of life while they're alive.

You may be surprised that most folks here are aware that the system is far from perfect and are even doing something about it. What the Dharma helps with is seeing clearly and not just one side which is often a reflection of ourselves.

It is truly amazing to what extent our perception of reality is conditioned by our mental state. We are lonely unappreciated despondent and the world is a cold cruel stupid place full of assholes and fools. We find a good job, fall in love and suddenly all that is forgotten and we stop to smell the roses and marvel at the children laughing.

Which view is true? Truer? Is one right and the other wrong?...

So the 'moral of the story' here then, is balance.

[greentara]

No one has mentioned Telomeres, they have been compared with the plastic tips on shoelaces because they prevent chromosome ends from fraying and sticking to each other, which would scramble an organism's genetic information to cause disease or death.
Some elderly people can smoke, drink and eat large amounts of refined food with apparently no ill affects. One could conclude that their telomeres have not frayed.

[Lhug-Pa]

Telomeres are interesting.

I'd like to know how many natural ways there are to lengthen/extend telomeres, similar to how one can naturally increase HGH-production with natural supplements in combination with an overall healthy way of life.


Back to the main topic here, more Monsanto Exposed:

[Simon E.]

Folks, next Fall DO get your flu shot.

[asunthatneversets]

I haven't had a flu shot in probably 20+ years (I'm 30) and I can't remember the last time I had the flu, probably when I was very young. My son is now 4 and he's never had a flu shot either, and no flu. It's unnecessary in my opinion.

[Dan74]

I haven't had a flu shot in probably 20+ years (I'm 30) and I can't remember the last time I had the flu, probably when I was very young. My son is now 4 and he's never had a flu shot either, and no flu. It's unnecessary in my opinion.

We have a sample of two people who have not contracted flu without the vaccine.

I have no idea how useful the flu vaccine is, but I know that the above is not a proof that it's useless.

[Fu Ri Shin]

We have a sample of two people who have not contracted flu without the vaccine.

I have no idea how useful the flu vaccine is, but I know that the above is not a proof that it's useless.

But Dan, don't you know that the plural of anecdote is "data"?

[Dan74]

We have a sample of two people who have not contracted flu without the vaccine.

I have no idea how useful the flu vaccine is, but I know that the above is not a proof that it's useless.

But Dan, don't you know that the plural of anecdote is "data"?

Touche!

But a whole lot of anecdotes is a little more convincing than one (cf the recent spate of anecdotes on the side-effects of Champix, Pfizer latest anti-smoking miracle). The trouble is of course that scientists tend to follow experimental methods, proper setup, double-blind, etc. Of course why should we trust them when they are in cahoots with Monsanto, the big pharma and the reptilians?

Well, the answer might be only a minority are. Look at the journals - are these the top quality international journals, look at where the authors work, look them up and see if their work is deemed to be compromised by serious people. I mean common folk seem to be very easily bamboozled, but not all opinions count the same, especially the ones that are not supported by evidence. The greatest and saddest example may prove to be the Global Warming. But then not so long ago there were many who were frothing at the mouth in denial of the link of cigarettes and cancer. How quickly we forget...

Never mind, back to the usual.

[Fu Ri Shin]

Touche!

Whoops. Did that deadpan a little too well...

I meant to convey that multiple anecdotes is definitely not data. You're correct, there's nothing convincing or evidence-constituting in testimonies.